Quote:
Originally Posted by odamizu
Wow, is it just me or does it seem like Amazon is actively monitoring this thread and the Apprentices' blog and GitHub discussions, and swiftly closing workarounds. Amazon links to older versions of K4Mac that worked for years now do not work. The only Amazon link that now works is 1.28.0.
I wonder if this is just to protect KFX or if they'll soon thwart our efforts to get KF8. I wonder if the option to "download for transfer via USB" will soon disappear. Yikes!
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Yes. I would be amazed if Amazon is not monitoring all of these sources and more. I certainly would if I was in their position. And of course all of the sources for the tools are available on Github, including all pull requests. Amazon are a very innovative company and they employ substantial talent. The scheme they have adopted to change encryption on the fly is very impressive. From what I can see they have planned for their encryption scheme to be broken periodically and for it to be changed immediately. It appears changes to new voucher envelope versions are trivial and implemented by changing the version number and two values.
At the moment K4PC 1.28 is using version 4 voucher envelope. As I understand it, versions prior to 1.27 used versions up to 3. In 1.27 version 4 was included but not used. There is also facility for further versions to be incorporated. I expect the next version of K4PC will likely have version 5 implemented but not used. Then, when version 4 is broken, Amazon will activate version 5 encryption and require the latest version for the books it particularly wants to protect, at the moment Pearson textbooks. If version 4 is broken today, I would expect a new release of K4PC immediately incorporating version 5.
IMHO I doubt Amazon seriously intends to prevent removing DRM for most of its e-books. As I posted earlier, the fact that DRM can be removed may well result in increased sales of Amazon e-books. What this seems to be all about is preserving a probably very lucrative textbook sales and rentals business. But this does not mean that it will never be tried. Right now I suspect the voucher envelope based DRM scheme is an interim measure. I'm sure Amazon is probably working on a more robust scheme, at least for Pearson textbooks, as I write this. I just hope that Amazon does see some benefit in the present situation and does not start treating its readers as the enemy, like so many others.